Carl Jin spent an entire night devouring over a dozen homeless people, feeling his strength steadily grow until he had become stronger than even Spider-Man in broad daylight. So he decided to carry out his plan: first eat all of Peter Parker's friends at school, then disguise himself as them to get close to Parker.
Who could have expected his first target to fail? That damn Parker seemed to have known what he was planning all along. The instant Gwen left the subway station, Peter took her away. Worse still, that meticulously woven, flawless skin suit looked like nothing more than a Halloween mask in Parker's eyes, punched through in a single blow.
That alone would have been one thing, but who could have imagined that Parker was giving off such an enticing scent today? Sweet and cloying, hot and bloody, like rotten honey mixed with blood, it drove his spider swarm completely out of control. Not just the ones lurking inside him—even the spiders hidden in sewers and wall cracks poured out like mad, converging into a black torrent before condensing into a humanoid monster over three meters tall, swinging on webs just like Spider-Man.
"I'm faster than you!"
Carl Jin laughed wildly in the wind. He caught up with Spider-Man at a speed even greater than his, stuck a web to Spider-Man's back, yanked him in front of himself, then raised his fist and punched Spider-Man in the head. The tremendous force sent Spider-Man flying.
"I'm stronger than you!"
Carl did not let Spider-Man go after sending him flying with that punch. Instead, he rapidly descended, landed on top of him, and threw punch after punch until he smashed him into the ground. Cars on the street blared their alarms, pedestrians screamed and scattered, and countless spiders formed crude facial features across the giant humanoid face.
"I'm smarter than you! I have Chameleon's intelligence! I knew that The Punisher was waiting for me in a trap! But you won't get that chance!"
He watched as Spider-Man's eye lenses narrowed.
"I thought you were just on steroids, Carl. Didn't expect you to be on stimulants too."
"I'll tear that mouth of yours apart, Par—AAAAAHHHH!!!!"
The Web Shooter released an electric current at just the right moment, giving the spider swarm a round of electroshock therapy. But the pain lasted only an instant. The remaining mass of spiders devoured the corpses of their own kind and produced new spiders. More importantly, quite a few spiders had already appeared on Spider-Man's body.
As though he were a feast laid out before them.
But at that moment, something flew over. It was a small bottle Spider-Man had thrown. The liquid inside splashed out and stuck to the spider swarm. In an instant, the spiders crawling over Spider-Man began fleeing beyond Carl Jin's control. Carl Jin could even feel his own swarm gnawing at him.
"And you actually think Chameleon's smart? Carl, I really can't imagine how bad your math homework must be. No wonder I've never seen you in class."
Spider-Man backflipped onto a utility pole and began checking his Web Shooter. At the same time, a rocket screamed through the air and struck the chaotic swarm directly. The violent explosion nearly destroyed it. The Punisher appeared, stopped his motorcycle, and hurled several incendiary grenades at the burning spider swarm.
"Seriously? A rocket launcher in Manhattan?"
"Simple and effective. Not even Hell's Kitchen sees these things often."
As he spoke, The Punisher watched the fire and tossed incendiary grenade after incendiary grenade until he had emptied his supply. Spider-Man, meanwhile, sealed every nearby sewer manhole with webs. The two of them waited for the flames to die out completely—or for the spider swarm to emerge.
"You know, if this still doesn't take him down, then you'll have to..."
"Yes. I know."
Under their watchful eyes, a huge ball rolled out. Its entire surface was covered in spiders burned to charcoal. The moment The Punisher saw it, he left to prepare the second plan, while Spider-Man sighed and sprayed himself with a third bottle of pheromones. The stuff worked well; it just didn't last long.
Cracking out of the enormous charred shell, the dried-out spider swarm could only gather into a pathetic little thing about one and a half meters tall. But its explosive power had not changed at all. Peter fired a web at it, but this time the swarm automatically split apart into countless spiders, avoiding being wiped out all at once by the high-voltage current. Seeing that, Peter immediately fired another web toward the other side, sticking it to a fire hydrant. Yet spiders that pounced at him immediately bit through the web.
At that moment, Carl Jin understood one thing clearly: this was Spider-Man hunting him. To deal with Spider-Man, he only needed to do one thing—no matter what, do not let Spider-Man do what he wanted. His spider swarm crawled all over Spider-Man's body, directly biting apart the old Web Shooter before condensing into a face and roaring.
"Parker, you're dead today—"
"Looks like you need help, Little Spider!"
A football struck Carl Jin's newly formed head dead-on. He glared furiously in that direction and, together with Spider-Man, saw Eugene Thompson, who had somehow arrived. Even Peter could not help muttering, "Damn it," when he saw Thompson.
"I've got help. Run!"
"But you really look like you need help!"
Peter got up and started brushing the spiders off himself, but Thompson did not run. He even looked like he genuinely intended to help brush off the spiders. Thinking quickly, Peter shouted, "Thompson, right?!"
"Yes! Oh my God, you remember me!"
It'd be better if you didn't come here and make things worse!
"Can you drive?"
As he watched his new suit being torn apart by the spider swarm, Peter knew even the reinforced polymer fibers would not hold out for long. Yes, they had a backup plan, but it was not reliable enough. There was no way to guarantee that it would completely take care of Carl.
So he really did need a little help.
Thompson was sincerely delighted, because he really could drive.
"Good. Find a car, ram open the fire hydrant, then get out of here fast!"
As Peter spoke, he grabbed the spiders on his body and crushed them one by one. Thompson found the nearest car. Fortunately, the owner had fled without taking out the keys and had not even had time to turn off the engine. Thompson got in, jerked the steering wheel, and floored it straight into the fire hydrant. The hydrant toppled over, sending a column of water shooting into the sky.
Thank the New York government, there really was water in the fire hydrant.
Drawn by the pheromones, Carl Jin had no way to deal with Thompson, who had already run off to watch from a short distance away. But that did not stop him from mocking Peter Parker. "Water? You think you can drown me?"
"I never thought that, Carl. But even elementary school kids know one thing: water conducts electricity."
The severed high-voltage cable fell around them, and the massive current instantly surged through both the spider swarm and Spider-Man. Spider-Man rose amid the current and grabbed the high-voltage cable. "Maybe by eating people, you're faster than me and stronger than me. But I'm tougher than you, Carl."
"Time to say goodbye, Carl."
"No! No!"
Feeling his life ebb away, the spider swarm dying continuously in the electrical current barely condensed into a face and made one final plea to the enemy before it.
"You're a hero, Parker. You're Spider-Man! You can't kill me, you can't kill people! I won't attack you again. I can turn myself in. The Avengers must have a prison for me, Parker!"
As Carl Jin felt himself steadily dwindling away, he also felt an indescribable silence. The high-voltage current passed through both their bodies, equally draining their lives, until at last even that face could no longer hold together and collapsed.
Spider-Man threw the cable into the standing water, then endured the current and walked out. He glanced at Thompson far in the distance. At that distance, an ordinary person could not possibly have heard his final conversation with Carl Jin.
"You didn't do anything wrong, kid."
"I feel... like I don't feel anything. It doesn't feel real, like I killed someone." Peter asked The Punisher, "Is that right?"
"That only proves the thing you killed wasn't human, kid. You destroyed a monster. You did the right thing."
The Punisher patted him on the shoulder. "Change your clothes, then tell your friend it's all over. You smell like meat roasting on a grill."
--
This happened half an hour later.
A group of NYPD officers of unknown origin sealed off the entire street. They removed the high-voltage cable and collected all the mutated spider corpses. The man in charge of the cleanup responded to instructions from the other end of a phone call.
"Yes, destroy them all? No, no problem. Not a single spider will be left behind."
In an unnoticed corner, the corpse of a large spider burst open. The last surviving little spider quietly crawled toward a small drainage channel in the distance, but a boot stepped on it, then slowly lifted away.
The person in charge, noticing that step, looked over and asked the "special consultant" who had come to handle the case.
"Did you find something, Agent Web?"
"No." The Asian girl, who looked no older than a high school student, looked at the spider corpse on the ground and answered succinctly.
"All threats have been eliminated."
Before you continue